With about 4,000 members signed up so far I figured it would be good to have an SEO Book introductions thread. Please use this thread to introduce yourself, and give feedback on how we can make this site better for you.

Comments

CK Chung here from the OC. I'm an Independent SEO Consultant / Competitive Webmaster. I don't want to look spammy, so you can find more info about me and what I do if you click through to my profile...

As for making the site better for me, you are already doing an excellent job as it is. I was going to try to be funny and say that it would be better if you sent me a lot of money... but the ideas and strategies that I have gleaned from you are making me money. :)

Well I'll kick it off then :) My name is Joost de Valk, SEO, Blogger, coder, and avid reader of SEO Book :) Making stuff better: you should go into podcasting, that way I can consume your stuff while on my way to work etc. :)

Hi Joost
One fear I have with doing audio is that I might get tired of saying the same thing in many formats. Pretty soon there might be some cool technologies that will help aid cross-format production though.

SEO Book is a great resource for me to stay informed on SEO trends and offers excellent insight. I agree with the idea of podcasting. I follow several from Webmaster Radio every morning.

I appreciate the tools and information. Other than that, I have no recommendations. The only other thing I would like is the opportunity to meet more local webmasters and SEOs. Not sure how that could be done, though.

Just saw your post and I couldn't believe someone from Charlotte, NC actually posted on this site - just because I didn't think anyone around here was doing so. Anyway, I'm here in Charlotte and actually joined a meetup.com group for E-Commerce owners, but the organizer stepped down and no one wanted to take over - so it's now defunct. I thought about taking over, but the membership looked a little lacking. Please contact me to chat and we can exchange contacts that we do have and whatnot. My email is in my profile.

Hey Aaron, congrats on 4000 members.... Peter Davis here, I go by the same handle (petertdavis) in most relevant communities. I've been webmastering for nearly a decade now, doing not only SEO but also community building and domaining.

Congrats on 4k members!
Mike Piper here. Use seobook for strategies for marketing my small business tax books. Avid seobook reader since I learned about it. Loved the videos the most perhaps, but all of the content is wonderful.

Your site is great and I want to particularly acknowledge the awesome (and free) tools that you provide for webmasters. I also like the Q&A threads you are doing...so long as you have the time to answer folks, it would be great to keep the up.

I love the username there bathroom hero. Makes me think of some funny cartoons.

I would like to do the live test stuff, but after a search engineer blew up one of my sites after reading about it on my blog I really do not trust them anymore. Plus, in many verticals where I am new in it does not make much sense to draw competition into the marketplace until my site already has a firm footing.

If I make a best of breed site that I don't think Google will toast just because I blogged about it then I will likely share more info about it.

I manage a popular Internet-radio music network called Digitally Imported Radio (DI.fm), I've started it as a hobby 8 years ago.

I have a number of other things on the side or in the works, too many to mention. But SEO and domaining is my new-found interest as of late, hence why I am here.

SUGGESTION:
Aaron, what I think you might have great success with is if you launch some kind of a resource center. Like a relevant jobs, industry services, or even for sale listings (services / domains). I guess there are a few others like it in the space lately, but your reputation would also make this a good niche hub for such things. Just my two cents.

I'm an in-house sem (ppc, seo, affiliate). I work in a fast growing b2c brazilian company. I would love to find here some tips about SEOing outsite US, ranking factors differences, these kind of things.

I'm an emmerging internet marketer. I graduate in May (BA Business) and have for the last six months really started focusing on internet marketing as a skillset. I appreciate all of the information that I have gleaned from you through your sites and will continue to read and learn.
A suggestion...perhaps you can include an advice section on the foundations of internet marketing. Critical skills to build upon in the future.

Hi James
I sorta provided an overview with IMME, but my big problem is that I sorta see how x patches with y and z and it is exceptionally hard for me to categorize and chunkify everything.

To me domaining might be a subset of branding and it might be a subset of SEO. And SEO might be a subset of public relations and marketing. And public relations might be a subset of SEO, etc. My mind is very weblike with how it connects ideas.

Wow so many professional SEOs here. I actually feel honored reading from the same sources as the pros.

I work at an entry level position for a real estate hosting company called Advanced Access in Anaheim, California. I mainly do customer service & help desk related tasks. However the company I work for does have an in house Search Engine Marketing department that I been trying to get in.

Really I am just an SEO geek. I love learning about it, even though I'm not a SEO expert. I figure we have to start some where and in the past 8 months that I have been learning about SEO I have learned a lot. So someday I may be doing this as part of my profession. For now I'm just having fun learning.

Hi Chris
A few years ago I was just an SEO geek. This industry is so new that there is not much that separates passionate geeks from professionals if you are willing to stick with it and keep learning for a while.

Hi Aaron (and all of the other readers). After 20 years managing ERP software consulting organizations, last spring I made a career change and am now working in an advertising and branding agency in Canada, managing their online services - SEO, web site development, online advertising, and any other related activity.

My name is Harry Bishop. I have a few consumer facing clients, but most of my customers are in the B2B world - manufacturers selling to and buying from other firms. For the first group I'm doing promotional sites, e-marketing, corporate sites. For the second larger group I'm running SEO programs, attempting corporate website redesigns to at least not be so fundamentally counter to SEO goals :-) , negotiating and executing online advertising from basic banners through rich media and viral, direct marketing, corporate web sites, etc, etc.

Hi Aaron, been reading your blog/site for 1-2 years now. About six months ago I took the plunge and turned my Salt Lake City, Utah based branding/web dev/web design/advertising/marketing/copywriting/graphic design firm into just an seo/web design firm, and things have never been better.

I am doing a lot of work with Drupal that is not public facing yet. Drupal is great stuff. It is the wave of the future as far as I see it. In another year or two Drupal will be about as well known as Wordpress is.

Aaron, your Book has been great. I have only made it through page 85, plus the supliments and have recieved my $79.00's worth 10 times over. My profile is my introduction also, however, I do look forward to learning and sharing on yet another great site. Peace, Mike

I have been studying SEO intensively since mid-2005 when a developer friend turned me onto RSS and some forward-looking statistics about the future of online advertising.

I have a degree in sociology and a background in copywriting and PR, so I am really into KW research, social media, linkbait and link building. (I like the linguistic and sales part of SEO.)

I worked for a local SEO firm for almost a year but I found I couldn't relax unless I was working on building my own business, so now I provide SEO and social media consulting services to clients and I enjoy it very much.

My new year's resolution is to take a serious stab at building an authority site of my own. I've been sitting on a domain for a while and it's time to make something out of it. Thanks for the inspiration!

I'm Matias Bulox. I bought your SEO book like a year and a half ago and I gotta say it has really given me a boost in this field. I am from Argentina but I've lived in Houston, Texas for 5 1/2 years now. I've been always related to Real Estate and 2007 was my best year...I created an online system that generated over $90,000 in 10 months for a local Realtor so I think I got something!!!...Congrats for the 4K members!!!...Keep up the amazing work you do.
God Bless You, your wife and your SUCCESS!!! Happy Holidays.

I'm James Burns from CMS Website Services, LLC. We have a team of 25 and specialize in Drupal Development. Since your site is also Drupal, would love to see some Drupal specific SEO info posted in your blog.

My name is Stuart Hughes and I discovered seobook a few months ago and have been reading the blog pretty much everday since. I've been a professional graphic designer for about 20yrs, but about a year ago kind of changed gears. I've got a hotel reservation site (competitive industry much??) and am spending more time marketing it really than trying to go after graphics business. I've learned a lot by reading your site, because you have a truckload of knowledge ... and are honest and open as to what's happening around the web. Thanks, it's great.

Hi Everyone, my name is Carlos and am based in Vancouver Canada. I have a SEO firm with my wife and I also work at HealthPricer.com as the in house SEO. I find the SEObook site to be the best source of up to date information.

I'm Dave and I don't sleep that much, so can often be found catching up with SEO work at night.

Married to a South African fashion designer, work as a pro photographer / web host / web and graphic designer (bit lazy on that score, so always looking for cheap flash templates and add-ons (am I allowed to use the 'F' word on an SEO site?!)).

I'm Mario Sanchez and I've been following your blog since the early days of your "Google Steals Christmas" article in 2003.

I am an Internet marketing geek although I work full time as a product development director for a 160 year old hardware company. As of now, Internet marketing is just my hobby but I'm expecting it to become a full time gig once I decide to take the plunge.

I'm now on my second site (see profile), a relatively new blog that revolves around branding and social media.

Thinking of what I would like to see in your blog, I envision a series of posts called "one day in the life of Aaron Wall" where you share all your daily professional activities with us, namely, how much time do you spend reading blogs, researching and writing posts, building your social media profile, working on customer's sites, updating seobook, etc.

I remember once reading "The Art of the Deal" by Donald Trump and talking about it with other people, and the part of the book that everybody enjoyed the most was the first chapter called "A Week in the Life" where Trump shared with his readers the details of a typical week of work for him. It would be great to read the same kind of chronicle about you.

I'm Elvis, and I'm and SEO/Internet Marketer although I'm just getting into the web marketing thing now.

I'm also involved in the Real Estate business and love working on computers. It's no wonder I like SEO :)

I do web design (CSS XHTML), graphic work and I'm just getting into PHP coding to make the sites more interactive. Plus there is some good stuff you can do with landing pages with PHP (and other languages too, I just prefer PHP)

I may as well state I'm 22 years old, going on 23 this year and am looking forward to my future on the net and to continue reading SEOBook pretty much daily!

Best of luck with the launch of that local review site. I recommend pushing public relations hard at launch so you can get enough PageRank and rankings to make your site get active feedback and stick in the SERPs.

I think the formatting of the comment section does not change formatting for replies hurts that aspect, the fact that I don't have any employees, and the fact that this site looks so similar to the old one makes people less likely to reply to comments.

David Norris here, SEO/usability/e-commerce consultant & site manager. Yours is only e-book I've ever bought or recommended to others, and I still find it a valuable resource after years in the business. The one thing I'd like to see more than anything is a recommendation on a keyword management program... something that will allow me to categorize thousands of terms, export (but not list) permutations, and allow imports from google analytics or other programs to add to the list. I've never found anything even close.

Hi David
The best publicly available program for the keyword grouping and management settings is probably the Google AdWords Editor, but you still probably have to find a way to tie in testing new keywords with that.

Hi all, I am Sufyan living in Pakistan and doing SEO stuff of my own. It's much better to do own stuff than working for corporate firms.

And I don't think I would be where I am now without Aaron's support and help. He is the man! The MOST HONEST AND KNOWLEDGEABLE PERSON IN THE SEO INDUSTRY I HAVE EVER SEEN. Thanks for being a friend! I would love to meet you in person. :)Keep rockin!

My name is Craig and I am the in-house SEM and general tech guy for a web design company based in nottingham, England. We do a pretty large amount of sites and we share offices with an e-commerce company.

I enjoy reading this blog as it actually gives me SE news instead of news that has been copied/pasted from somewhere else.

Hey thanks for that comment, and the bluntness of it too Diablos. One of my mentors who goes by the nickname NFFC (after the football club) lives somewhere near your parts. If you know him please say hi to him for me.

Nice to read about the background of your readers. My name is Gemme, an independent SEO Consultant. These days I'm focusing more and more on the Chinese market as I live in Shanghai and probably will be here for the years to come.

What I most appreciate of this blog is, besides the useful tools, the passion in your writing and the insights that come with it. The fact that you don't follow the pack is a great bonus as well as there are already enough GG groupies at the moment.

I have no suggestions for improvements of the site at this stage, just keep blogging:)

Hey Buddies,
This is Ramesh from India. I was in the US for quite a while and started my online operations from there while doing a job many years ago. But currently I am operating from India. I work mainly on my own projects including sites selling information products as well as affiliate offerings. I am also trying to do some JVs with local offline vendors.

Though I see lot of SEOs in India seling their SEO services as the manpower is cheap. But I am not a huge fan of selling lot of low value commodity products in large volume. Hence I focus mainly on my own projects and try to create value out of them.

Really, not much suggestions to improve this site as it already rocks. Recently videos, Q&A sessions were great. Maybe you may cover a little bit more on domains. Something like Domaining Guide for SEOs on the lines on the Blogger's Guide that you did earlier.

Hi Ramesh
Believe it or not I was just writing the draft of an article about domain stuff, but it did not come out all that well, so I had to scrap it. Will try again soon.

I totally agree with your brand strategy. As soon as people tell me about outsourcing and cheap man-hours I start thinking about increasing computing speed and more powerful open source software commoditizing the value of cheap down to next to nothing.

My name is Jason and I'm a graphic/web designer from the UK. I have been designing websites for a few years now but only got into the SEO side of things when I launched my own photo site at www.fotoviva.co.uk which I hope to make into a second business.

Your book is full of very valuable SEO knowledge that I keep reading again and again. Keep up the good work!

Hi Aaron,
I work in this business in Spain. Most of the information I get is from the US, but too little for other markets. My suggestions would be to give more information about international markets.

I'm an inhouse SEO/SEM for a French travelling company in Paris. Two and a half years ago I knew nothing about SEO and all began with your book. You, your book and your blog helped me a lot showed me the way. When I need some inspiration, new ideas I read your blog and I always find something extraordinary.

I'm Ryan Freeman, from Toronto, Canada. Online, I use the handles "RKF" and "Infinite."

I started working with "internet stuff" in 1994 with a local computer store that had a BBS and was one of the first ISPs in the area. Eventually they grew into the largest privately owned ISP in Canada, but by that point I had opted to pursue the big bucks of the family flower shop (doh!).

I've moved into SEO as a natural progression from website development which was a hobby/side business since the mid 90's. Now I'm hoping to expand my SEO business in 2008 by contracting / hiring a couple more people to share the workload and allow me to spend more time with clients and sharing basic SEO knowledge when the opportunities present themselves.

Congrats, Aaron, on reaching 4,000 members! I wish you continued success and thank you for continuing to provide excellent advice and insight with balanced opinions. I look forward to congratulating you soon on 10,000 members!

My name is Mike Tekula. I've been involved, though sometimes loosely, in web development since 1999 when I started a web development company with two high school friends. However, my college career took me all the way from programming to philosophy to creative writing. I did a lot of fiction writing for a few years - still a love of mine.

I've been doing SEO full-time for about 1.5 years now - for two different Long Island Internet Marketing firms. However, I'm in the beginning of striking out on my own. I simply have found other people's business models to be less than honest, and what I personally love about SEO/M is that I can help people and still make money - a novel concept apparently. I've realized running my own show is the only way I can ensure clients are truly getting what they pay for.

I've been reading SEOBook.com since I started learning about SEO about two years ago. Aaron is one of the few sources of consistently insightful and truly helpful information not just on SEO but on all things Internet Marketing, and I don't think I'll stop frequenting this blog any time soon.

Thanks for years of inspiration and great advice, Aaron, and congratulations once again on finding someone great to share your life with!

Hi Mike
Sounds like your experiences are a bit similar to mine...there appears to be some form of an honesty tax in the business world. Some people who are too honest don't get referenced by others who are less so. Some people who are too honest have thinner margins off the start, but after years of grinding it out do better than the fraudsters.

We are both lucky that the web and SEO allows us to say whatever we want and still be able to help people out while making enough to live well ourselves.

Hi, I'm Martin and I'm co-founder of Supernatural Agency Inc., a company that invests in and develops domain names. My partner and I are SEO/SEM marketers who got tired of doing it for others and watching them make the real money. So we started a company that doesn't require customers or clients- go figure...

One interesting thing I've learned is that domainers in general are really weak when it comes to SEO so part of my mission is to get the word out in that world.

In-house marketer for Cars.com in the Chicago Loop. Spoke at over a dozen industry conferences over the past few years (which is nothing to Aaron, but a pretty big deal for me), and a former Board of Director of SEMPO. Love my job, love my industry, and never thought I'd be able to say that, as a former Steelworker in Michigan.

Just became a member (don't know why I didn't do this sooner), but since I started in SEO over a year ago for the first company I worked for(i am not going to drop names but it is a UK company based in Manchester) I have found Aaron site one of the most consistant and useful resources on the web for the industry I was put onto it on day 1 when I started and still have it in my bookmarks today.

I know work for another SEO company (if you really want to know you can look at my profile) and still use your site Aaron.

As far as the site goes I can't think of any improvements but if I think of any I will let you know.

It's amazing that you answer everyone, Aaron. That shows how someone really cares about their readers.

I am a web developer and small entrepreneur. I used to freelance few years ago, but recently moved ahead into doing consultations. I have few sites and services and am interested in SEO just for getting more traffic to them (have no plans in being professional SEO).

I've read your book and have to say it was one of the most refreshing things to read, especially after I've read several "make money online" crappy books by the most popular "gurus".

I'm Kay Frenzer, and go by SEO Diva on one of my blogs. I built web sites on the side for 10 years, then got into SEO a couple of years ago and found my niche.

I currently work as SEO strategist for a marketing agency. There's nothing I like better than to see myself or a client on the first page of Google! My goal is to make a comfortable living from my web sites, and I've made a pretty good start.

I read your blog regularly and learn a lot from it. I really appreciate all your tools and your book. Thanks for all you do!

Hey, Andrew aka "Gareth" from italy here.
I'm a lurker, working as a php programmer and webmarkering specialist in an advertising agency in Torino (Italy).

I'm also a part time internet marketer and Seo entusiast... i've been trying to introduce "Seo awareness" into the company for the past 9 months without much success... i wonder how can the customer be aware of Seo if my sale department people are unaware of the matter. ;)

Hi Gareth
Indeed workplace awareness is important, and a lack of it hints that you may likely have a run in with management over their management style. Realistically though, who in marketing hasn't heard the Google story by now? At one point do they pick up on search?

Hi NickB
Gald to hear the rankings are coming in. It is a big jump to go solo, but if you believe in yourself and are willing to work hard you will do well. I quit working for others when I was making about $100 a month from the web.

Hi Nick
I had a roommate and lived in a mobile home. I actually only finally allowed myself to move out of the trailer last year (when I met my wife). Low living costs are key to being able to take big risks so you can watch the big rewards come in.

Hi Aaron, new reader, about 3 months.
I think the tools are a great benefit.
I'm a renaissance man myself, between software support, client setup, websites, fatherhood, and online gaming, I tend to stay quite busy, with 3 full fledged ideas floating in my head with neither the time nor money to have them come to fruition. Can anyone else relate?
Looking forward to getting the book for my uncle as he breaks into this industry at the beginning of the year.
Nice touch on commenting on everyone comments, World Class!!!!

Hi Youfoundjake
I think most of the people who read this site are just like you and I with ideas...way too many ideas, and not enough time for them all. But having too many ideas is better than having time and nothing to work toward.

Learned the basics of SEO from SEO book and decided to drive across the country to start working at an agency in San Francisco.

I work on large clients where PR and gaining link equity isn't as much of a problem. What I would like to see is more solutions for large established clients. For example, international KW research, international duplicate content issues, brand name searches etc.

On the side I mess around with a bunch of domains and websites to run some SEO experiments. One thing I noticed, but not through a controlled experiments is Google scanned my gmail account and indexed what I thought was an orphaned page... would like to run the test again or maybe I can get some confirmation here that this in fact occurs.

I also run googlesearchsucks.com where I rant and rave and let out some steam on the end of a long day.

Andrew Shotland, loyal SEOBook reader and presiding pundit over at LocalSEOGuide. SEO/SEM consultant and general client handholder (it's just business I assure you). I am also the proprietor of the East Bay SEO Meetup. Hope to see you at one of our future events in Oakland. Muchas muchas gracias for your great work. It is much appreciated.

I've read your blog everyday (well nearly) for the past 7 months. I gave up a well paid directorship at a blue chip in London to start my own business, Globaledge.co.uk, a trade portal for the overseas property industry. I launched 2 weeks ago and I've already sold over £10k in advertising and employed 2 full time staff.

We've never met and I've never posted on your blog but you have significantly influenced both me and the development of my business. Here are a few things I've learned from you.

1. If you can, consolidate an industry. I evaluate other businesses (real estate search engines)to help estate agents choose the best marketing partners.

2. Build a site that is genuinely citation worthy to get links. Early days, but lots of people are talking about me. 753 direct visitors in first two weeks (trade PR and DM campaign to key influencers.

3. Build a one-stop-shop for your audience. Overseas agents differ from domestic agents because they need to work with international partners (Spanish developers need to find agents in the UK for example). They can find partners quickly on our site and get free independent advice on the best online tactics and real estate search engines. It's a complete solution for all their partnering needs.

4.There is huge value in being concise and making things simple for your audience. I use analogies and examples to explain key concepts.

5. High value activities are content and relationship building. I've written well over 50 000 words of concise content. I haven't paid myself in 7 months but I've learned a lot and I'm proud of what I've written. I've also made great contacts which is making things easier for my new sales person.

6. If you're serious about building a brand, it must pass the "radio test". Not sure if you said this exactly but after reading your posts I bought www.globaledge.co.uk for £1650. As well as the branding benefits (I had www.global-edge.net which doesn't pass the test) it's a 1997 domain and I rank already for competitive 3-word phrases like "developers in spain".

Hi Aaron from another Aaron. I currently work as an inhouse seo / web designer for a large UK pet housing firm. I've been building websites for the good part of 10 years now, 4 years as just a part time hobby along with my photoshopping addiction and 6 years as my day job. I got into SEO through your site 18mths ago while looking for ways to improve my employer’s site sales. Ended up buying your book and that was it. Now totally hooked on anything SEO related after seeing the results.

Aiming to do it for myself in 2008, setting up on my own as an SEO / web designer along with working on my own projects where I’ve developed a taste for mobile search and web design also toying with Googles custom search. Just want to take the opportunity to say a big thanks for unintentionally steering me into a career which I really do enjoy.

I am a SEM Consultant that floats between agency, in-house, free lancing and my own side projects! I am doing just the last three at the moment and enjoy the mix!

Firstly, your tools are great! However, there is one SEO tool that I do not know exists and would personally find it really useful. It is hard to describe... although you would use it when you are deciding which pages to optimise and which have the highest priority.

Ideally it would extract all the pages in a csv file through spidering a site and each page would have key attributes such as the number of inbound internal links linking to it, the internal anchor text that is associated to it, the hierarchy of where the page sits in the site and perhaps even the average (toolbar)PR of the page linking to it. This combined with prior keyword research would provide a good model for mapping out keywords across pages that are important. It would also help identify poor internal linking on a site.

I hope I don't sound like I have gone mad. Please let me know if you know of a process or a tool that could help.

Hi Joe
I am sure tools like that can be made, but the closest I have to something like that is Backlink Analyzer. One of the hardest problems with creating such a tool is that most of the search engines only let you search 1000 results deep. For large high authority sites you are limited on both links and pages by that 1000 result limit.

As far as how to get all pages from a site, you could use something like Xenu link sleuth or Google Webmaster Central to get some of that data you want, and then process the rest from there.

I'm Patrick from Germany. 24 years old. I used to program computer games during most of my free-time in elementary, then had the same kind of passion for the stock market and then for foreign languages (though I spent more time playing sports - you can imagine Im a bit crazy, I guess).

When I graduated from high-school (4 years ago), I was wondering what to do with my life and thought it'd be extremely important for me to spend more than the average 50-100 hours researching what major I want to pick/field I want to work in (considering you spend like another 80,000 hours of your life working in that field).

During the next three years, I must have spent more time reading about possible career paths I could choose than I spent on studying and dropped out (with a major in business). That's how I found out about SEO and web analytics a bit over a year ago and realized I had finally found the right thing (which is what I'm most interested in when it comes to the web).

I overanalyzed way too much trying to find perfect ideas, which is why I only started my first site a month ago, but I think I've finally overcome that problem :-). I also started to major in business again trying to get a bachelor's degree just to be on the safe side. I'll be in college for the next 3-4 years and will have up to 20 hours/week to put into actually practicing not just reading about SEO (your blog is the only SEO blog I'm still reading, btw).

My first goal is making around 100 Euros/month from my website(s) until the end of next year and hopefully a bit more by the time I'm done with college. Having 'lost' three years of my time, I hope I can get a well-paying job as soon as I'm done with college.

I also plan on moving out of Germany to a sunnier place (southern France or Spain or...), because the sun hardly shines here, which makes me pretty depressive at times. Hopefully I can get to travel a bit and can do the mandatory internship for my degree abroad and also spend a semester or two abroad to get to know a few more places.

I'm wondering how I'll feel about all that in say 2 years from now?

What I would love to see you do on this site is cover PPC more. I really like your posts on internet marketing stuff in general (not just SEO) and would love to see more about that on PPC.

When it comes to reading about SEO, I think I 'know' about most things I need to know about SEO already having read your book and having been a daily reader of your blog for a year, etc. (I said 'most' (not all) and 'know', but still have to learn to apply it, of course!) and am mostly reading this blog to keep up with changes/news.

However when it comes to PPC, I'm not very knowledgable, yet and would love to learn more about that on the side w/o having to find yet another blog about PPC and reading that all the time.

P.S.: Is your chapter on PPC up to date with the engines' PPC algorithms? or does it lag behind a bit? (I read it about a year ago and am not sure if there have been any updates)

Hi Patrick
To be honest my PPC section could probably be more in depth, but I did not want to write 300 pages about PPC stuff, and I should start practicing using PPC on a wider array of sites to get more experience with it.

BTW I would encourage you to read at least a couple other blogs to get a more well rounded take on search marketing and internet marketing stuff. I still have lots to learn. :)

I used to read like every other blog and was on 5 or so forums, but b/c I realized I had a serious problem with reading too much and not practicing enough I decided to drill down..

thats why now I'm only reading your blog for SEO/internet marketing and another blog for web analytics..and am almost only using searchguild as a forum...so I have enough time to actually build my sites and put what I've read to practice so I'll no longer be 90% theory and 10% practice hehe ;)

Hi Aaron,
Atlanta GA Realtor by day SEO student by night. Trying to get my site to #1 is what brought me here. I appreciate your approach and advice! Some of the technical stuff goes over my head, but I am living proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

When I was in college (short stay) computers were the size of coke machines and worked with punch cards.

Hi Dan
Glad to hear you are able to get into the mix and learn all this stuff. It is a process, but if you like it now and still feel like you are learning then eventually you start knowing more of the answers until you know most or nearly all of them. It is just a process like anything else.

Hello - I am Kevin Althaus and am working as a marketing director for a Phoenix based nightclub. My training is in marketing, PHP development, and graphic design. Soon I hope to add optimization and online marketing to the list!

I am glad to hear that you reached a bench mark of 4000 members. Don't know why but it give me a sense that there is some thing cooking in your mind regarding paid content and memberships.

I have been following your foot steps and keeping close eye on this blog for almost 2 years its being quite helpful and help me understand a-lot about what SEO is and how it works.

I am 24yrs of Age from Pakistan I have been in this industry for 2 years and started my first website back in 2004 to achieve visitors i have spend countless hours reading online and since then i landed on your site my work is much easier and i learned a-lot from you. Two people i gave all credit in this industry are Aaron and Shoemoney. Rand comes later and his writings help a-lot too.

Currently i am managing sites from small to medium size. I own few and now started consultancy one to UK company and One based in US.

The Sites i am managing are ranking well mostly in top3 if i have some personal address access i will share my ranking with you and make you feel proud that your virtual student did a great job :)

Hi Aaron,
I've been a regular reader for well over 3 years. I read your ebook about 3 years ago when the boss for the company I worked for wanted to rank higher in the search engines. Your book helped us get to over 50,000 visitors per month. I then started my own company that offers web design/development and internet marketing services. www.kinoli.com

Hi Josey
It is tricky talking about client work in any sort of specific manner because then I have to think of the client's interests, ask the client's permission, and make sure it is cool with Scott and Todd too.

I kept getin water spots on my coffee table so I bought yuor book to have somewheres to put my coffee cup. It works GREAT!

Back in 97 I got fired from my male escort job. I didn't have any skills and not much sense so i decided to become a seo. Bin doin it ever since. It'd be a ok job if you didn't have to screw around with these damn computers!

I was first introduced to your website by a manager who used your keyword suggestion tool to demonstrate search volume at homes.com.

Since then I have used your resources to help move to a better position in my career. I now work at a digital marketing agency downtown San Diego and am very grateful for all the resources that you have provided to aid in my learning.

Aaron,
Thanks for being a resource putting a different perspective on the industry and congrats on passing the 4K mark!

I have been an in-house SEO, SEM manager for over 5 years and have become active in the community with my own blog. SEOBook and others have been very influential in breaking into the sphere and have enjoyed seeing you speak, watching your videos and reading your offerings here.

- Started in the Web Industry as a Designer/Developer since 1997.
- Started playing around with SEO in 2004.

- Still has a day job as an SEO Engineer as they call my position at BusinessOnLine.
- Also does my own thing in my own company YDS Web Solution, Inc.

- Won a car as the top prize being the overall winner of the SEO World Championship by GetUpdated.

- In my own company, not that small, but also not big, It's in the transitional stage right now in growing where I find it difficult with client growth surge.

- And in 2008 I want to do no more design and development work, and even not to take all SEO clients that come my way. And start working more on Affiliate Marketing and Online Community Development. Probably make web-based tools also and doing more Drupal and AJAX stuff.

I have been a regular reader for about a year and have really enjoyed the wide variety of topics you have hit on your blog and in your videos, and love to hear your perspective.

I have been in IT and software development for a long time and have worked on a variety of large and small web sites, but it has only been in the past year that I have finally begun to understand some of the mysteries of Google and SEO.

I have done a lot of testing and playing around with some web sites, but I have just started creating my first real website at http://SmallBusinessTechs.com (just installed joomla today and will start adding content during the next few weeks).

As for making it better, the only thing I can think of is adding a podcast because I love listening to good podcasts while I drive and work in the yard.

Been following the blog right around two years. Don't want to duplicate my profile but thanks to Aaron's insightful information, I've looked much smarter than I really am and sold my first company within a year. Doing client work now but am strongly passionate about building my own B2C product-based businesses... I'd like to be doing only 20% client work or less in 3 years - just enough to keep me sharp and give me some a bigger budget to experiment with.

Suggestions? To Aaron? That's tough - saw a few wanting podcasts and I'd definitely subscribe. Aaron, you can hire yourself a great VA to transcribe all that for you (and do just about anything else). I just hired one last month and I have been outrageously productive so far. However, my wife is pre-angry in anticipation of if she ever receives an unusually sensitive and caring card written in exceptionally good English and with even better handwriting ;)

Hi Matt
I am looking to do more stuff on extending outwards beyond the work of one person. Some of those extension ideas are employee based and some software based. I really need to get used to working with a few employees if I want to keep growing though.

My wife has actually been doing a lot of the work recently, but I think we just have to decide to hire some folks.

Hi Dave
I rejected the forum idea long ago because I thought I could add little value to an already saturated marketplace, but as I have learned more I have been debating giving that idea another chance.

Steven Bradley here and as CK did to start the comments I'll direct you to my profile for a little more info. Suffice it to say I'm a Web Designer/Developer and SEO and hoping to move more toward developing my own projects in the days ahead.

Aaron I'm not sure what I'd want you to change. I've read every post here for about 2 years now and you've helped shape my thoughts about marketing and seo. A lot of the ideas I've had began while reading something here.

My favorite posts tend to be the more thought provoking marketing posts that talk about where things may be heading. A good seo tip is always welcome too.

Threaded comments might be nice, especially for the posts that generate a lot. I wish we didn't have to login to comment, but I understand why you had to add the registration. Maybe offering a little something extra for people who do take the time to subscribe.

I'm not quite sure there would be much in this idea for you, but a private forum for members would likely go over well. Though I think there's a lot more in that for us than for you.

Hi Steven
I was thinking over adding forums, and have always passed in the past because they tend to be rather low on the value chain. If I could find a way to move it up the value chain I might do it.

We already have threaded comments, but I think they are hard to notice due to the formatting of the comments...it is hard to see that comment x was a reply to comment y.

I had to do the login thing because I was losing an hour a day and feeling bleak about humanity because I was getting dozens to hundreds of manual and automated spam comments by a bunch of spammers. Some of them even left in the comments that they would keep spamming until I just left it posted. Due to the tragedy of the commons, anything that is free and open has the market push the value toward the pricepoint - nothing.

I'm glad you pointed out the threaded comments. They were hard to see. It might be good to indent the replies a little.

I wouldn't really expect you to add a forum for the reason you mention. That would probably be more for us to interact with each other, but the threaded comments can do that as well.

I remember all the trolls that were here before the new login system went into affect and it seems to have helped. I know what spam can be like on my blog and I know that's nowhere how much attention you get here.

Plainly, we must soon cease to treat the parks (SEO Book) as commons or they will be of no value to anyone.

I'm a 26 year old guy living in Thailand. I first came across you Aaron some years ago in a pdf file in which was an article written by you. I thought you were a smart ass (sorry!). I didn't know about your blog at that time.

Anyway, I'm into web design, experience design and consumer behavior since over 5 years but never really got interested in actually making money with my sites (of course I regret that a little bit now). This changed after I finished my studies three years ago.

First I read a lot of different websites about internet marketing / seo but then I realized it is too time consuming. So since then I just read this site and love it. You seriously rock. It's great to read stuff from a person with a "sharp mind".

I moved from Australia (where I studied and lived for some time) to Thailand two years ago and live here from my Google money. While I love all this Internet related stuff, I used my money to build up a real world venture that keeps me crazy busy right now.

Google pays my life and a bit more but I don't really work that much on my websites anymore. The good thing is that most of them are resource / community driven sites so they are established enough now to work on their own. I had to do this because English is not my first language (German is) and I didn't want to write content myself.

Thanks for your insightful articles Aaron. I don't feel like missing anything major as long as I read your site from time to time.

mark rushworth a biography:
2007 - now : sales and marketing manager for xrio an it innovation company. My role is in training and implementing a wide range of design and marketing solutions for the business.

2006 - 2007 : design manager at nemark media. my role was in the strategic design, development and marketing of corporate websites and online applications.

A 25 year old affiliate marketer here. First read your ebook about 2 years ago, had no idea how to do SEO, read it, and in my second year netted over $2 million.

Some things I'd like to see in the blog are more topics about Google filters such as triggering them and ways Google detects what they like to call "link purchase spam" and what I like to call marketing.

Hello Tal Zwecker here from Israel, (if you google me you will learn about my personals :) bought your book and I am on pg 122, love it so far many good ideas.

I have been building simple html frontpage websites since 1997-8. I also remember the good old Altavista days. When Google hit I was actually out of SEO for a while now I am back and doing catch up.

I do content management, SEO, SEM and technical writing but its not paying my bills well :(

Although I used to be successful with the organic SEO and PPC,nowadays I cant seem to get any new clients or gigs. I am SEO SEM - ing http://www.internet-security-inc.com/ right now for better rankings. Its a niche market with a huge database and growing for security products. We were doing froogle / google product base for years and now we did the directory listings. Adding many new content pages for search engine spiders to eat up.

What I would like more from this site is why common strategies fail, as many simple down to earth SEO campaigns I had in the past that did nothing spammy did any pointers are appreciated.

My name is Wes Grasty and I run an online customer service business. We specialize in providing customer service and order processing for e-commerce businesses, especially the DIY'ers who are ready to outsource these services affordably.

Anyway, Aaron - I would also love for you to do a podcast. Just do it in one format. I think most of us are savvy enough to convert it if necessary. I'm an X-musician, so I'll mail you a Shure SM-58 mike if that'll kick start you!

Aaron, you are so generous with your info, and I've learned a great deal from you. I don't have any recommendations at the moment. I'm one of the few who prefer to read instead of listen to podcasts or watch videos. I'm old fashioned that way.

Founder of CollegeProwler.com and BrandingBrand.com and Real Estate Investor in the Pittsburgh area.

I love every aspect of online marketing.

This is by far the best SEO resource online. You are honest, you wear your heart on a sleeve, and your customer service model is the way of the future for successful websites.

Constructive criticism.
Give us more detail on case studies from either you or one of your colleagues. Include the entire process on how they created a website and beat out competitors to get it first on google.

Can cookies cause a site to become penalized? My site requires users to submit an email address to view certain information. The email address acts as a password; as a cookie is place on their computer. If they choose not to submit they may leave the site. I'm curious as to how google may see this.

Just signed up and looking forward to learning. I'm a network admin for a company with an atrocious web presence! I'm taking it upon myself to try and apply what I learn here to the site to see if I can make a go of it. Where does one go to download the SEO book?

Hi Aaron, I don't know if this thread is still active, but the email I got after signing up suggested I post. I live in Jerusalem, Israel, I work for a company that makes online stores for furniture and whatnot. I am starting to make some sites of my own on the side (not stores) to try and supplement my income and support my family. Ultimately I'd love to be successful enough with that to have enough free time to spend on learning and teaching various subjects (Torah, shiatsu, some sort of spiritual/healing thing). I am married with 2 daughters, I spent a number of years learning in yeshiva and I'm also learning Zen Shiatsu. I am also a musician- something else I'd love to have more time for.
So far the whole SEO/web design thing has been a fun project as I progress in teaching myself. I hope to buy your book when I have the money to justify the purchase. Your website has been an amazing resource, and I truly appreciate the help it's been, and your wonderful generosity with your experience and knowledge. You deserve the success you've achieved. Thanks again, I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Hi Joseph
Thanks for the kind comments. Sounds like you have a lot of interests. I think it is worth just spending a few minutes a day on a few of them making websites for them, and then see which ones you naturally gravitate toward and then focus on them.

My name is Patrick Greer (also known as linkerjpatrick). Along with my wife I co-own a business in Greenville,SC called SpinningSilk Multimedia. We develop web, print and portable media solutions for small businesses and organizations.

Hello I am Danial. The last 19 December was my 34th birthday and living in Malaysia.I have been working for 8 years in the landscape industries here .I am a landscape designer and occasionally do the landscape contracting.

I have never known about making money in the internet until about 2 years ago when I found out a guy named Corey Rudl thru the internet. Since then I have been searching for ways to promote my experience and hopefully earn some money thru the internet marketing.

I read so many e-books and downloading anything about internet marketing including softwares and ad blasters that turn out to be crap, time consuming and sometimes make me feel so overloaded.

English is not my mother's tongue and I normally would took 2-3 hours to do a 600-800 words article and then re-read and trying to correct spelling and grammatical errors( I'm sorry if this comment contains grammatical errors, even this comment took 30 minutes for me to write)

It has been more than 2 years, almost every night, after my day job, I spend my time reading and trying to put internet marketing ideas to work until 2-3am in the morning. I haven't made any real income yet, other than 4 or 5 dollars here and there not enough minimum payment to be transfered to my Paypal account.

I know about you a few months back and I didn't do anything to become a member to seobook until I join Squidoo.com by Seth Godin and read about The 8 Free Things Every Site (or Lens) Should Do.

Hi Danial
Nice picture at the top of that lense. If you stick with it hopefully you will do well.

Sad that there are so many people who scam people in internet marketing, but the optimization vs exploitation curve is often a thin line, and many people who start doing well forget where they came from and fraud people.

I bought seobook just over a year ago after reading an article about it in .net magazine (UK publication).

The book sparked an interest in seo and since then have used some of the tips to build a wallpaper site which is now bringing in about $80 a month. Not much but it's been fun. 12 months ago i'd have been sceptical about any revenues.

So I keep coming back here to the blog - hopeful of picking up some tips that may help bump the site up the rankings.

While not being an SEO pro myself, out of necessity I've had to learn about search engines to run my websites. I have learned more from SEOBook than from any other source. Thank you!

One thought for you: what I'd find valuable is information from the book presented in smaller, well-organized chunks on this website, for subscribers only. The eBook is great, but it can be cumbersome to refer back to. Just a thought ....

Hey, my name is Tom Demers (hence the clever SEO book appellation). I'm a twenty four year old with a degree in philosophy. In August I was tending bar (insert impracticality-of-philosophy-degree joke here) when my friend was named CMO of a reasonably well-funded software start-up. Due to a fortuitous bit of cronyism I was named "Director of Online Publicity" and asked to generate content for and oversee the website. I had to learn HTML and CSS from tutorials and started reading everything I could get my hands on (that was free) about SEO, e-marketing, e-branding, etc. I've since been handed three other websites of the investors' to create and oversee, and I am working on creating two of my own (passion projects that I'll pump a bunch of original content into and eventually try to monetize, which is essentially a plan of action I completely hijacked from this blog). Anyway, the investors entrusted me with the websites due (pretty much entirely) to my sounding well-versed on the subjects of SEO and e-marketing, which I owe to resources like this one.

I take an enormous amount away from your blog and I wanted to thank you personally for what you put into it.

I don't have any meaningful/useful suggestions for SEO book...the open threads are amazing; I suppose "keep those coming" is as close to constructive as I can be. One quick question: I know you talk about all of these frequently, but could you (or someone else) point me to any particularly valuable high-level, beginner-type overviews (comparable to your Bloggers Guide to SEO) of: affiliate programs, adsense/adwords/PPC campaigns, and/or domaining?

If you look through my AdSense posts on this site and put them together in aggregate they probably are better than any book on the subject.

Shoemoney has good advice on affiliate programs. WebPublishingBlog also posts some great stuff from time to time when I read there. Andy Hagans had a great post on how to make thin affiliate sites thick. Sugar Rae is also posts good stuff on affiliate marketing. I have a hard time recommending most people inside the affiliate marketing sphere because they recommend everything as essential as long as they get a commission.

I recently wrote an article about domaining, but it is not quite finished. It should be published in about a month.

We have got a lot of tips from your site..We are new at site building and really got a lot of informations,suggestions from your site.With the help of SEOBOOK our site http://www.links4info.com has going to get a new face soon i believe..

I am Sapan Behar, a Realtor from Beautiful British Columbia. I don't spend as much time I should on this site, but have read the seobook religiously; implemented and experimented some of the concepts on my blogs at:

Hi there. I'm currently working for a PPC agency,and am taking the time to learn SEO on the side. I have heard some really great things about this site, and am hoping to pick up some really useful knowledge. Look forward to speaking to you all.

My name is Mark and I am Working in website marketing for Hotel Booking website.

I have checked some forums so there is specified , SEO Book is a great resource Learning centre of SEO Techniques. after checking some useful resource on seobook, I agree with the all forums.

I appreciate the tools and information. Other than that, I have no recommendations. The only other thing I would like is the opportunity to meet more local webmasters and SEOs. Not sure how that could be done, though.

I've been using Drupal for a couple of years, and am currently using it to develop a new keyword tool (hence me finding this site!). Hopefully it's sufficiently different from SEOBook to NOT make it a competitor! ;P

Arron I want to say how much I thank you as I do believe all of us do for all that you are and all that you do. My name is Alan Stevenson and on the net am known by a few as Chef AL, living in the Niagara Falls area of Canada. I am a 29 year industry working chef and over the last 18 months got into doing biological / cellular research where I put in 2500 hours in 7 months and ended up with an award winning doctor as a partner who has been curing cancer and other life ending diseases for 10 years now.
I am not a marketer and really don't like it to begin with. I own three websites and need to build another as I have been prompted to start a Health Coaching business. So Definitive Health Coaching is in gestation now. So much to say but where to begin... Thanks Once again Arron for this here.
Remember: Each one of us is an individual cell of The Human Race... Sincerely
Chef AL

Hello everybody, my name is Frank. I am a Systems Consultant in Miami, Florida who took up Salsa Dancing and Web Design as a hobby about ten years ago. I started promoting dance events about 5 years ago now and my main source of income has shifted from computers to entertainment. I have a community dance site and promotions company with over 30,000 members and I recently opened a professional Dance Entertainment company.
I have been researching how to promote my new Entertainment Company on the web and I came across this site. I purchased Aaron's SEO Book and I can honestly say that it was the best spent money an information junkie like myself has ever spent.

Hello all. My name is Cheryl, and I live in southern Arizona. I have been doing backend web development for almost 8 years now for the same company, but never really got into any SEO. A colleague and I decided several months ago to start our own side business in domaining. We purchased the SEO book a couple of months ago and have just started getting more serious about developing out the online real estate we have acquired. No comments for improvements right now, but will post again if I think of any. Thanks for the great resource, and I look forward to exploring the training site and this community.

Hi everyone, great crowd here. My name is Rance Edwards, I live in Blacksburg, Virginia working for a small but rapidly growing click & mortar selling Virginia Tech Merchandise (Go Hokies!) I've been thrown into the deepend to learn SEO in order to overhaul and maintain our e-commerce site. Our rankings are flagging a bit since the middle of October, and I'm trying to rally them back up to the top!

Aaron, I bought SEOBook as an internet newb 2 years ago, after reading tonnes of schlock, it was great to get some solid information about how to market properly on the net, thank you for the resource.

I'm a tertiary qualified marketer, and work in sales for one of the largest on-demand software companies on the planet...great learning curve, but really working hard to make my site a fulltime thing.

I run a blog for the competitive soccer/football goalkeeper and with your advice and tonnes of hard work, we've taken a pretty small niche website and grown our unique page views from just 400 per month 2 years ago to over 19,000 unique hits every month.

I've written my own e-book, and sold just over 150 copies to date (since last April), we've built a list of over 3000 subscribers, become affiliated with some very large soccer sites and organizations, and are in the process of redesigning our website with our own paid membership (backend) forum to complement and add value to the e-book and our brand.

Everything to date I've created myself, website, design, logo's, content, wriing the e-book etc...so the money we received from selling the e-book, we re-invested into the site redesign.

Currently we are also the official resource for a brand new goalkeeper gear manufacturer from the UK, and will be featured on their packaging as they distribute their wares across the UK and Europe, so fingers crossed.

We have 4 regular writers who contibute their own advice and articles to our readers...they do this for free which is awesome, so hopefully when we start getting some money rolling in, I can pay these guys for their hard work and passion for helping me keep the site going.

Anyway, that is me...great to be on board, and hope to chat and collaborate with all of you at some time.

My turn. I bought a website in 2005 built around SEO tools that I redesigned as a diversion from my full-time work. Of course, most of the tools had to be revised (again and again as the search engines change). I was fortunate enough to find a programmer who is extremely capable. Due to a change in my job and the unavailability of the programmer, I neglected the site to the point that I thought about shutting it down. The same programmer is once again available and wants to build up the site.

So, for the last couple of months I have been trying to expand my understanding of SEO with the immediate goal of improving the website. I find Aaron not only very knowledgeable but a writer whose personality comes through in his writing. So, I bought his ebook and subscribe to his feed. I am not sure where I will take the site except to add to the tool selection (if anyone has an idea for an SEO tool, please let me know). Participating in Aaron's new venture seemed like a good way to continue my education.

HI,
Terry from New York. Currently have 2 ecommerce stores with pretty decent ranking and working on 2 new stores so Im always looking for the next wave! whether it's good old SEO or new internet marketing gimmicks - video, podcasting, viral marking, social media, bookmarking, stumbleits etc. etc., we need to stay on top of it if we are going to outrank our competition! :)
SEO book was my very first introduction to the ins and outs of search engine ranking a few years ago and I am excited to hear there will now be a community! :)
Lets get moving up the google ladder!

Hey everyone, moves2008 here from Toronto and my goal and focus for as long as I can remember has been self employment.

For the past 10 years I've been involved in the advertising industry working as a web developer for numerous agencies in the Toronto area. At this stage of the game I'm looking forward to utilzing my web dev background to make a living online building and developing solid brands within the industries I head into.

Hi, I am Naveen Kapur from India (New Delhi). Not new to SEO but yes very new to establishing my side business on Internet. Have been in the education field for 15 years and that's what I am trying to do on Internet, teaching/sharing ideas about ethical SEO.

Aron, your website is a boon at times. For someone like me to actually know about Internet marketing. I am a constant visitor to your site since last 2 years now. With much of success on keywords and SERP, I can get anywhere on search engines, thanks to all your info and great QnA.

The only stuff I am trying still to capture is Where exactly am I missing the fun of selling a affiliate product.

Got a decent traffic in 3 months, a decent SERP too but still need to know more on "Why people don't buy ebooks or related stuff" that I sell on my websites. Though I only sell what I belive in and understand its need for others to go through.

AdSense is great, get lots of clicks and money, but again need to know how to sell a good affiliate product.

I hope I get what I am looking for in your site.

Looking to many more advancements in your website.
Keep it up Aron. Great Job. :)

im gilani from pakistan. running USA based web development house in lahore. i don't now anything about SEO.but want to learn everyting:).
we just launched our job portal in the name of career.vi. and now i wanted to optimized this site on search engines.

I am your avid reader from Malaysia. As you can probably tell, English is not my mother tounge.

I am quite excited with the opening of your community. I have no problems making that kinda investment ($100/mo) but I have a problem with myself: lack of commitment and focus.

I have been doing affiliate marketing for well over 4 years. I earn between hundreds to 1k+ (USD) in pure profit per month via SEO (with long tail keywords) and a little PPC. I am shy to admit that I probabbly only put less than 10 hours or real work per month.

Hi my name is lorens from New York City. I am hoping to learn how to generate traffic and make some money on the web. I am interested in finding quality companies that have great services and great employee relations and showcase them on my site. Things I like about other peoples product. What make some companies great, what makes some last what cause some to prosper or some to fail. What makes you stop in your tract about a company. whether it is an ad campaign, second hand information about a company, charitable contributions etc. Often times we get jobs in companies but find out too late what is important to that company. If someone can tell us before hand what that company really stand for would help us make a better, informed decision about how and who we spend our hard earned money with. I hope with your help it can become the vision I see in my minds eye. My website is www.publicityhype.com.

Hi,
I'm new, too, although am old to the internet (was first user on the faculty of the student isp service). Studied theology & now, currently unemployed, seen on a site itekspert.si about people doing various certificates, an I think it would be quite good if I would do some kind of certification in SEO/SEM, although an Microsoft certification they offer isn't so bad.